Uncle
by quondam
Summary: Three years after the end of the Reaper War, Shepard and Garrus visit Palaven to meet Garrus' nephew. While there, they're forced to assess who they are now, and what they want for their relationship together. Prompt from MEK on LJ.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes: This story was written for a prompt on the masseffectkink community on LJ. The prompt called for a world post-MassEffect3 where Shepard is alive and communication/space travel hasn't been destroyed, Garrus finds out his sister Solana is pregnant and he is to be an uncle, and as a result, it leads to talks between Garrus and Shepard regarding their own future and the possibility of children. I've written a sequel to this story, 'Dad,' that can be found in my list of other works._

* * *

The Normandy was a shadow of what she used to be. Outside, her paint was chipped and scarred, the ship's plating discolored where bits had been replaced with pieces that were never quite right. Inside, she was less than brimming with a small crew that nowhere near rivaled the number of crew that had once filled her rooms and passageways back when she'd been the SR-1 and even in the days before Shepard had taken the ship into the eye of the storm with her, determined to bring the Reapers to their end… or die trying. Still, though, as Shepard walked the old girl's halls every night, she knew the wear and tear and flat out damage the Normandy had endured would never make her less. Only more. Sometimes, she wasn't sure if she felt the same way about herself.

"We'll be a few days on Palaven, Joker," Shepard said as she leaned against the back of his seat, eyes scanning over the screens of data ahead of them. There'd been an overwhelming amount of chatter over the comms and data uplinks since Normandy had jumped through the nearest Relay and closed in on the planet. It was comforting, a stark contrast to what they'd heard on that mission to Menae with only the emergency signals activated, and even a sharp change since she had last been to the Turian homeworld a year and a half before. It was a phenomena she'd experienced all over the galaxy in the traveling they'd done as of late. Slowly but surely, the worlds were coming back to life, and the signals sent out were more than a clear sign of it.

"EDI, let the crew have a day or two shore leave while we're here, standard protocols. Remind them about the radiation, though, shouldn't be out there too long without an enviro-suit or getting anti-rad meds from Chakwas."

"Of course, Commander. And I'll have any urgent incoming messages patched through to you," the AI replied from the physical body she inhabited. "Are you sure you have everything?"

"Yeah, what exactly are you supposed to bring to a thing like this anyway, Shepard?" Joker said. "Bird seed? Some sticks for the nest?"

"We're not birds," Garrus grumbled from a few steps back, lingering in the corridor behind the cockpit. "And I definitely didn't _hatch_ out of an egg."

Shepard did her best impression of shock as she turned on her heels to look back towards him. "You didn't?"

His mandibles spread wide and clicked in response.

"I'm just saying, man," the pilot continued, "have you even seen a cockatiel? Brothers! You could be brothers!"

Garrus' hand shifted for the pistol on his hip, talons resting on the grip but never actually moving to pull it from its holster. "We do have good pilots on Palaven, Shepard, wouldn't be too much trouble to pick up someone new."

"Boys," Shepard's voice warned in a rather motherly way, standing between the two as if she was ready to defuse a fight between two Krogan rather than a human and a Turian in the middle of just another day of constant teasing and bickering. "EDI will turn this ship around if you don't stop it."

"And miss out on all that dextro-food I was hoping on eating while I was here?" Joker whined with an exaggerated huff of air. "Get going already, you don't want to see what this place gets like when you're off ship."

EDI's head cocked in Shepard's direction."Yes, Commander. I believe you would never eat off the mess hall table again."

Shepard's brows pushed together while her lips fell apart, a grimace of disgust at the variety of thoughts occupying the space between her ears. There were some people on her ship she never wanted to imagine doing _that_, in a public space of all places. A health hazard at the very least, she'd wager. "That's very funny, EDI," she turned finally, heading back towards where Garrus waited, "your jokes are getting better."

Joker exchanged a look with the AI, shaking his head, eyes impossibly wide.

"Yes," EDI stuttered, or as close to it as a computer could, "a joke. There are certainly no video logs that would indicate it was anything but a joke."

Shepard stopped, linking her smaller arm through Garrus', as eyes squinted back in the direction of Joker and the very living embodiment of Normandy.

Jeff interrupted before she'd even gotten a word out, pitch of his voice escalated in desperation of redirecting where the Commander's attention lay. "That kid's going to be a teenager by time you finally see him if you don't get going! And then not even your stories about being the first human Spectre—or singlehandedly ending the Reaper threat—or that one time you drank a bottle of Ryncol and lived to tell about it—will interest him."

"Come on," Garrus nearly purred, tugging at her from where their arms linked. "Transport's been waiting for half an hour."

Joker waited for the sound of Normandy's inner and outer airlock doors sealing, the indicators on one of the aforementioned panels reading of the Commander's departure. Swiveling his pilots' seat towards EDI, he raised his brows. "Way to go."

"Shepard is not in a place to talk, Jeff," she said and sat back down at the seat beside his own. "You haven't seen the logs I have of her and Officer Vakarian."

"Well I doubt they've gone at it on the table in the mess—"

She punctuated her point with a deliberate glance to the very chair he sat in.

Joker couldn't stand up fast enough.

"Did you miss it?" Shepard asked from the passengers' side in the spacecar that had been waiting for them at the dock. It reminded her of a time long ago, nearly three years ago by Earth's standards, when he'd stood on the Citadel with the afternoon planned. It had been one of the only true respites she'd had during those weeks, and as unclear as some of her memories were surrounding that whole time due to the trauma she'd endured bringing the Reapers to their end, _that_ day she would always remember clearly. "Palaven?"

"I always miss it."

"We could make a point to be here more often if you want," she started, eyes looking forward again out the windshield.

"I didn't say I wasn't happy with you on the Normandy, Shepard," Garrus corrected, and let the three-fingered hand nearest her slip towards her own hand where it was settled on her thigh. He gave it a gentle squeeze, relieved when he felt her fingers turn over in his grasp and return the sentiment.

"I can't believe it's already been a year and a half since we were last here." Around them, destruction still reigned king, the Turian people fighting every day to pick up the pieces of their planet. It was the same story everywhere, save for maybe the lesser populated planets that had been spared from the Reapers' initial attacks. They'd been deemed smaller and less of a threat, easy pickings for the end, or so Shepard assumed. The further the vehicle got from the heart of the city center, though, the less the damage overwhelmed them. In large part, it was due to the lack of whole skyscrapers and buildings that would have been demolished in the attacks, but like those not-so-densely populated planets, the lack of easy living targets had also factored in. It was where, now, many of the Turians began to make their homes—whether temporary or in the longterm—as they tried to create some semblance of ordinary life once again.

"You should've seen this place before the war," he said, his voice far off like he was remembering distant memories he couldn't place as well anymore. "We had some of the most beautiful waterfront."

"It's still there, I imagine," she said as the transport slowed. "I don't think obliterating rock and sand was that high on the list of things to bring destruction to."

He considered her words as the vehicle came to a stop and powered down. "You're right. We should go while we're here. If there's time."

Shepard released his hand finally, instead letting her warm palm come up to smooth over the rough and never quite returned to normal mandible. "I'd like that," she leaned in and kissed the scar on his face that still showed through, "but you've got a nephew to meet first."

As best as any Turian could, he smiled. "Yeah, I do."

Just inside the entranceway of the home, Shepard watched the interaction between brother and sister. Garrus, without the kind of gentleness he reserved for his embraces with Shepard's softer flesh, wrapped his arms around the sister he was lucky to still have after everything. In that regard, he'd been one of the blessed ones, coming out the other side with his father and sister still breathing.

Shepard had only ever met Solana once before, the previous year when she and Garrus had finally been able to make time for the trip to Palaven. There'd been a marriage then—not one in any way celebrated like humans tended to when it came to the general fiasco that were their nuptials—but rather a gathering of living family members and friends alike, celebrating, in their own way, the new link of one clan to another. Still, Shepard could recall the genuine nervousness she'd felt back then, for once in her life desperate for acceptance, at least when it came to Garrus' family.

The Turian in question released his sister, and after some brief exchange, opened his arm to Shepard, an intentional act of drawing her into the fold. Solana, for all that could be said at times about how cold Turians could be, leaned in to hug Shepard, catching the Commander off guard.

"I never thought you'd be here so soon," she said upon letting go of the human, leading them through the open doorway into what looked most like living quarters. Shepard had spent so much of her time on ships or in Alliance barracks, she'd nearly forgotten what a regular home looked like, or how much clutter people could actually accumulate when they had the space for it. For too long she'd been living life with less personal objects than would fit into even half a knapsack. Long ago, she would have prided herself on that fact. In some ways, it made her a true soldier. Lately, though, after being pushed so very close to death for a second time, Shepard had felt that little itch under her skin that perhaps it was finally time for a change. Some of Anderson's final words up in the heart of the Citadel rang in her ears every day: maybe it was finally time for her to settle down while she still had the chance.

There was the distinct sound of someone humming, low and deep, and inside the room the owner of the voice was identified. Krinn, Solana's bondmate, stood at one of the windows, weight shifting between his feet as he rocked the tiny, bundled body in his hold. He was tall, perhaps slightly more so than Garrus, his skin and plates a hue darker as well, with those familiar blue markings painted across his face. A Vakarian now, he'd chosen to join her family's clan. He turned to regard them, the plates of his face flexing in a warmth of recognition. "He just woke up."

There was pride on his features that Shepard recognized, a testament to how much time she'd spent with Garrus, learning the ins and outs and quirks that his race exhibited. Her once dead, cold heart swelled at the sight.

"Well give him here," Garrus said without a second thought, the excitement he'd expressed over the last few months since he'd heard the news of Solana's impending arrival now suddenly pouring out of him given the chance. The exchange was awkward, and although neither male fumbled, Solana hovered nervously, anxiously, as if prepared to step in and prevent any harm befalling her offspring.

"Look at you," Garrus spoke with something akin to amazement, the child cradled in one of his arms. He stroked a grey cheek with the fingers from his other hand, careful and mindful of the sharp deadly talon each wielded. His eyes lifted from the child to his sister standing close beside him. "You did good, Sol."

She nodded, a thanks for the kind words that her brother shared. Her mandibles, only somewhat smaller than those belongings to the males of her species, flexed and relaxed, and in what Shepard now knew substituted as their general sign of affection, Solana dipped her head down, brushed her forehead against her child's.

"Come hold him," Krinn said, waving Shepard nearer from the few steps off she stood from them. "Garrus'll have plenty of time to practice being an uncle."

Shepard's skin flushed at the very idea of what she was practically being ordered to do. This had been the plan for months now, to return to Palaven when the child was born, and yet somehow Shepard had failed to consider what would happen after they arrived. "I'm not sure kids like me much," she said with a stunted laugh, but took the few steps closer anyway, finally getting a real glimpse of the newborn.

"Commander Shepard," Solana said with an amused look, "protects the galaxy, can't figure out how to hold a baby. I can see the headlines now."

Shepard smiled in response despite herself, and with a glance from Garrus, she nodded in submission. Exhibiting even more care than he'd shown when taking the boy from the new father, Garrus transferred the infant into Shepard's awaiting arms.

"He's so light," she said to Solana with her brows raised in alarm, the first thought to come to her mind. "Small. Was he born early?" Not that she'd ever done much babysitting in her life, but the tiny little Turian wasn't what she'd been expecting. "I've never seen one so little before."

Solana carefully adjusted the blankets her boy was held in within Shepard's arms, speaking as she worked. "Turians aren't as large as human babies when they're born. Parents tend not to take them out of the home for a few months, sometimes almost a year, because of how fragile they are without their plates."

Pulling at one end of the blanket, Solana slowly unwrapped the newborn, giving Shepard full view of just how tiny he actually was. Four pounds, she would say, at most. Shepard was sure she had pistols that weighed far more than this child, even without modifications.

"Turians, we're not, ah, as… flexible?" Her brow plates shifted, looking to Garrus as if seeking his help in searching the right word for what she was trying to explain. "I've seen a few pregnant humans, and I have to say, I don't envy what you go through for your children. Our carapaces and plates would never allow for even half of the size humans can typically reach, so our young are much smaller."

Shepard nodded along, fixed on the infant, his eyes—a startlingly similar blue to Garrus'—opening while his mouth let out his own expression of a Turian yawn, his miniature and dull edged mandibles flexing instinctively. An impossibly tiny arm, with an even smaller three-fingered hand, though without the sharp claws as of yet, waved without real control, while his legs kicked against the tangle of blankets by his feet. Shepard's cheeks ached with a smile she didn't even know she was wearing.

"His fringe will grow out as he gets older," Garrus said as he stepped in a little closer, tracing his fingers over the boy's scalp where what little fringe there was was short and tight against his skull. "Right now it's mostly cartilage, but it'll harden as he grows."

For a moment in time she had considered herself something of an expert on Turians, mostly because she was bedding one, but watching the tiny figure that each and every strong, hard, and stalwart Turian started out as, Shepard realized she actually knew next to nothing at all. Experimentally, she ran a bare finger against the child's cheek, feeling the way he turned into the touch. "He's so soft."

"Mmhmm," Garrus let out from the back of his throat. "What did you end up naming him?"

Shepard lifted her head long enough to see Solana smile.

"Necalli."

The response seemed to ruffle Garrus for an instant, but just as quickly, he pushed it aside. She'd have to remember to ask him about it.

"Necalli Vakarian," Shepard said, almost as though there were real introductions to be had between them. "Welcome to the galaxy." And that, Shepard knew, was why she had fought so hard at all.

Later that night, after dextro-levo dinners and talking near whispers so the baby comfortably snoozing in someone's arms didn't wake, Shepard retired to the spare bedroom. If it had been anyone else and for any other reason, she would have made a return trip to the Normandy to sleep in her familiar quarters, but there'd be no tearing away her Turian from his family, both old and new, now. Not tonight. After giving so much and nearly losing it all (more than a few times), it was a break Garrus deserveed, and maybe, she thought, that she deserved too. A vacation, that one they'd never actually been able to take after everything had ended.

She was mostly undressed by time he joined her, and though the look on his face was what Shepard had already affectionately deemed his baby fever face, his mandibles clicked in the familiar beat and pattern she knew to be an appreciative, lustful sound. He'd made it that first night before the Omega Relay, when she'd taken her shirt off and then her bra, exposing herself to him in a way few had ever before gotten to see. It was safe to say, as well, that nearly every encounter that followed since then had also earned her that pleased sound effect. It was something like Pavlov's dog for her now, except instead of drooling at a dinner bell, Garrus could flex his mandibles and make that sound in an innocent moment, and immediately she'd be counting the minutes until they could find a space secluded enough to feel him inside of her.

Still, though, it made her smile as she stood straight after stepping out of her pants, sloppily folding them up in her hands. "Don't think your sister would appreciate us christening the spare room for her," she said in a low tone, smiling all the while.

"What Solana doesn't know…"

Though there was that familiar, subtle throb beginning between her thighs, Shepard sat down at the edge of the bed, instead rubbing warm palms into the bare flesh of her left leg and knee. That ache was more important, for the time being at least.

He didn't miss the way she moved, the way it had been for some time now, and in seconds Garrus was kneeling on the floor in front of her, applying light pressure against the tired muscle and bone where it joined to the less organic pieces from the knee down beneath her skin. "We should really get it looked at," his usual plea went, and like always, he knew her response before she even said it. This was their one moment of allowed disagreement.

Shepard just shook her head, letting her hands relinquish control to his. He was better at soothing the ache than she was anyway. "It's fine. The radiation or something's probably just making it worse." Excuse three hundred and twenty one.

He continued on rubbing, letting her have her excuse. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Is there something I should know about the name Necalli?" Shepard questioned out of the blue, watching his face for that reaction once again.

Garrus gave a sigh, soft and weary, fingers moving down to the back of her thigh where he knew the muscle to be especially tight and overworked. "It's old Turian, very old, and it means 'battle.'"

"That sounds like a good name for a Turian." The only other race that it would perhaps be more fitting for would be the Krogan, she thought.

"It is," he acquiesced, nodding as he kneaded. "Just isn't what I would choose. I know it's ingrained in to us from the day we're born… how strong we are. Strict. Determined. A sense of duty. It's how I was raised." He quieted for a moment, but there was more stirring underneath. It would only take time to come out. "But now I know there's more to everything than that. I wouldn't go naming my kid with anything that had that kind of weight. Makes me think of Victus' son back on Tuchanka and how I hope to the Spirits that Necalli never gets put in a position like that." His hands stopped, manually helping her bend the leg at the knee, testing it out. "That better?"

It wasn't much, but every little bit helped. More than anything, it was cathartic. She nodded in thanks. "So I guess 'Carnage Black-Widow Shepard-Vakarian' is out as far as baby names go."

He seemed to consider it, and with a single brow plate raised, he spoke with a teasing fondness. "I could be persuaded for Mantis."

Shepard leaned forward, draped her arms around his thick cowl and buried her face away into the curve of his neck. The whole planet smelled like him in some vague way: a soft metallic undercurrent, the scent of soil after rain, an aroma of a raging fire made of burning wood. "If you want to stay here for awhile on your own," she whispered, and her fingers dug into the fabric of his clothes as well as his thick hide beneath it, "you can, you know. The Alliance has me running around visiting colonies, not you. I can be okay on my own." She always had been, at least. Now, though, Shepard doubted the veracity of what she was saying. She'd survive it, of course, a few weeks or months without him wouldn't be her end. But maybe life would be a little harder.

"You've been trying awfully hard to get rid of me today, Shepard," he said against her neck just as she did to his. Like the planet smelled of him, she wore the scent of the Normandy: soap and sweat and medi-gel, even that stuff he saw her put in her hair when she showered. Shampoo, she called it, and it was oddly one of the most human items he could think of. A product made that only one race—aside from maybe the Quarians, he still didn't know exactly what they looked like under their suits—seemed to need. He loved that smell.

"Yeah, well," she gave a huff, gathering herself together and pulling back, leaving her hands lingering on his collar. "You take up too much space in my quarters, Vakarian. I gave you two drawers and now you've taken a third. Where am I supposed to put all my—"

"Your what? Your hamster food? Spirits know that's about the only thing you own. And if I wasn't there, he'd never even get fed."

"It only seems like I've got nothing compared to _you_. I swear you travel with more crap than Miranda and that's saying something—and I would feed him if you didn't always do it _before_ I got a chance to."

He cupped her cheek and spoke with the corners of his mouth raised just a hair, mandibles flared. "Well I'll be sure to tell that to his corpse after you end up starving him. He'll understand."

Shepard shook her head and sat up a little straighter, as if physically steeling herself. In an instant, she wasn't just the woman he'd grown to know over the last few years, but the Commander. "I don't want you to decide now, but you should think about staying. I've seen the way you look at that kid, like there's nothing else in the world you want."

"No," he denied, and breathed in deep for the words he was gathering the courage to speak next, "that's the way I look when I watch _you_ with him."

Her fingers gripped him a little tighter at the confession, finding her mouth and throat a little too dry to reply at all. Despite all his sharp angles, the hard and rough surface his body had all over save for a few vulnerable spots, the fierce strength he had in the middle of a dogfight… there was softness there, too. She'd seen it time and time again, from their first night together to the months he'd spent beside her in the hospital—or hospitals, plural, since she'd been to a number of them seeking out treatment—after the war with the Reapers had ended.

How she was supposed to respond to that, she didn't know. Should she have told him how her heart felt physically clenched tight at hearing him voice some of her deeper, buried desires? Or should she do what she always did, rebuff and change the subject, move on? It wasn't a conversation she was ever really sure she'd be ready to have, the one about more than just their future. Come to think of it, it wasn't a conversation she'd ever had before. With anyone. And that thought alone left her running.

"You'd make a good father," was all she said, her eyes worn and weary, giving away more than she ever intended.

"Shepard—"

"We should go to bed," she cut him off strategically, "I want to know what eight hours of sleep feels like while I get the chance."

When it was time to let things go with her, Garrus knew. So for the moment, he let it go.


	2. Chapter 2

Morning on Palaven brought the heat along with it, Trebia's rays burning bright and raising the day's temperature one level above comfort. When Shepard woke, Garrus made good on that idea from the day before, and the two of them set out for the nearest stretch of coast, a sandy cove a few klicks away from where Solana had made her home. Shepard expected to find the place empty—after all, the Turians weren't exactly known for their laid back nature, even less so since the process of rebuilding had recently begun—but that wasn't the case. There were families mostly, single parents and small children spread out on the sand in a way that reminded Shepard more of humans than anything else. It was funny how entirely different species living at opposite ends of the galaxy could turn out exactly the same, sometimes.

"No one's swimming," she said, a questioning brow raised to Garrus before taking a leery gaze at the crystal blue depths, peaks of low white waves rolling in. "You're not going to tell me that while Palaven has beautiful water, you've also got your own version of Jaws that prowls along, picking people off, are you? You know, I could go back, get my gun… you and I could take care of him for everyone and accept lots of alcohol as payment for a job well done."

He smiled in amusement, the gears turning inside his head as if he was truly considering it. Suddenly, his face fell. "Wait. What's a Jaws?"

"It was an old popular Earth movie, way before my time. Way before Liara's time, come to think of it. It was about this huge shark—big cartilaginous fish with huge teeth that can bite your leg off without trying—that had a taste for human blood, spent its time eating the swimmers a few feet off shore. Some guys blew it up in the end."

"Ah," he said, and continued on, crossing a dune of sand until they reached the sprawling crescent of beach, "that explains why you liked it. Turians, though, we're not big swimmers. I mean, I think I can manage not to drown… we're just not as buoyant as some other species. Doesn't mean we can't appreciate it, though."

Shepard felt the eyes of the strangers on her, and though she'd never allowed stares to stop her before, it gave her pause, wondering if she was violating some unspoken rule about alien intruders. In places like Illium, Omega, what had once been the Citadel, and even some of the newer colonies, species mixed together freely. On the homeworlds, though, especially a place like Palaven that kept most longterm visitors away simply by way of the low radiation that emitted from the core of the planet, strangers like her were far more rare, especially outside a city center. For all intents and purposes, this was the countryside, a suburb, of all things. She truly was an interloper, and now there was no mission or Alliance heavy hand to mandate her presence, just a personal whim to intrude.

Garrus, however, didn't seem to mind, his three-pronged hand searching out hers in a sign that they were together and that she could be trusted, at least by proxy.

They settled down at the far end of the beach, away from most of the eyes and attention, laying down the blanket Garrus had smuggled out of his sister's house. There'd be an earful for it later, he was sure, but he paid the lingering thought no mind. Sitting, he looked out over the water, then back towards the rest of the expanse of sand, even some of the trees and foliage behind them and near some of the tall rocks that offered shade depending on the time of day.

"I know your head's not clear on that day, but do you remember what I said before you—"

She cut him off, toeing off her boots, pulling her socks free and tucking them in to her shoes. "—We'd retire, somewhere warm and tropical," Shepard said, pulling the words out of her memory. Their goodbye, all of it, that was one of the few things from that day she remembered like it was yesterday. "Palaven's not exactly as tropical as I'd go for, but it's a start."

He gave a satisfied sigh and hum of his voice in response, watching her. This wasn't what he imagined either, but it was close.

Shepard stripped her shirt off and began at the waist of her pants.

"Shepard—you're—you're not seriously going in there, are you?" Garrus said suddenly, concern on his features, his voice fraught with worry.

Stepping out of the last of her clothes, down to just the generous cuts of her briefs and a sports bra, she set her hands on her hips. "That's what you do at the damn beach, Garrus. Apparently no one told your people that." She began to back away from him slowly, only a few steps gone towards the shore when she spoke again. "Now the real question is, am I going to cause an intergalactic incident for exposing these young Turian eyes to so much skin?" And with that, Shepard turned and took off running towards the water, the fastest she'd moved in the last few years.

Garrus watched, wide eyed, as the only human on the beach reached the edge of the water, the wet sand behind her littered with a trail of impressions of the soles of her feet. She gave an excited yelp that was followed and overwhelmed by the sound of her laugh once the water caressed her skin, an auditory sign that the actual water temperature had finally hit her. She didn't stop though, didn't question her choice, but rather continued on, wading out farther and farther.

Shepard looked back, hand rising to wave and beckon him towards her, no matter how fruitless her efforts were. Only when she let her head dip down below the surface of the water, disappearing from view, was Garrus actually convinced to get up from where he sat, heart pounding in those few seconds she'd vanished before his eyes like nothing but a ghost. "Shepard!" he yelled, nearing the water, and though he knew she wouldn't have actually heard him, she reemerged from beneath the surface, hair sodden and plastered to her skin like she was fresh out of the shower. She was going to be the death of him.

"Come in!"

There was a lightness to her that Garrus wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. It was hard to resist. "Get out of there!"

"How about you get in here?" She replied, and to tease him further, she let her body float up onto her back, the gentle waves rocking her back and forth.

"Spirits," he grumbled, catching something in his peripheral vision. It was one of the Turian children now standing a few feet to his side, four or five years old and hesitantly approaching where the ocean water lapped at the shore. The wave would bring the water in a few inches closer and she'd scurry away, afraid, before it even touched her. The water would go out, and she'd approach with a new bravery, feeling the cold damp sand, but always chickening out when she got too close. Her mother, Garrus presumed, lingered a few feet away, protective but letting her daughter experience the water however she saw fit. When he looked back, Shepard was closer to the shore, only a few feet out, her legs submerged from the knees down.

"Hello," Shepard ventured, towards the other nearby Turian and child, that worry she'd had earlier gone out of her with the surge of adrenaline the ocean had brought to her. It had given her its calm.

The woman replied, terse and short, but the child, on the other hand, had gaped, mouth and mandibles spread wide in curiosity. "You're a human!"

Shepard smiled, a playful roll of her eyes. "Am I? Garrus, did you hear that? Why didn't you tell me I was a human!"

"Are you sure?" Garrus asked the child. "Maybe she's just a really ugly Turian."

The little girl laughed, loud and unrestrained, the way all children did before they worried about things like that. "No," she insisted, her head shaking as she looked back to her mother. "Mommy, it's a human!"

"Secret's out, Shepard," he said with a dramatic breath.

"Shepard?" The Turian woman responded, her attention suddenly piqued, more so than it had been at the mere fact that a human had been on Palaven, playing in the planet's waters. She took a few steps nearer, eyes squinting for half a second, taking in the stranger. "You're that Commander," she said, and there was a distinct relaxation of her form, as if knowing a name to the face no longer made her such a threat, at least enough to earn some semblance of trust. She looked to Garrus. "And you're Vakarian? Both of you, it's an honor."

This wasn't a new reaction for either of them, especially not over the last year when the Normandy had turned into more of a diplomatic vessel than anything else. Like it or not, after what they'd done, she was no longer just a nameless face. And Garrus, to his people, had experienced something of the same, regardless of how little either of them had wanted it. No matter, both Shepard and Garrus dipped their heads in a nod.

"Have you ever been in the ocean?" Shepard asked the girl, her focus shifting from mother to daughter.

She shook her head, backing up once again when the water came a little too close. "I'll get swept out!"

"Hmm," Shepard said, tapping a finger to her chin. "Then how come I'm still here?"

This puzzled the little girl, and she stuttered, mandibles clicking in frustration. "You're big? And human! I'll sink."

Shepard raised her eyes to the girl's mother, and with a nearly imperceptible nod from her, Shepard closed the distance between her and the tiny Turian. "What if I promise to hold you and not let you go, will you be brave enough to come in with me?"

Her eyes went big, in both a temporary sense of childhood fear and excitement. A war raged behind her light colored eyes as she looked back to her mother for some sense of approval or guidance. Whatever she found there was enough, because in the next instant she'd turned back towards Shepard, taking a wary few steps closer.

The Commander, like she'd done it a thousand times before—and holding a Turian child was vastly different from a human one, what with their sharp and rough edges growing in—picked the girl up, letting the awkward boney legs curl around her hip.

From where Garrus stood, he couldn't hear what Shepard said anymore as they moved deeper in, though still not far enough so the girl touched the water just yet. He couldn't take his eyes off them, not for a second, afraid he'd miss some little touch of affection between the two strangers: the human he loved and the child she'd befriended with not much more than a few words. He could almost hear Shepard talking in his head as he watched the way her lips moved. Counting down, he imagined. Three, two, and on one, bending at the knee below the surface so that the girl's lower half was submerged just for a quick second before Shepard returned to her full height. The girl squealed in delighted giggles.

"They say you're her mate," the Turian mother said, finally coming to stand beside him though keeping adequate personal space between them.

Garrus wasn't sure how to reply to such an opened ended sentence. From some, it was a loaded statement, looking to pick a fight with him for even considering letting his affections lie outside of his race. For others, they commended his bravery, the forward thinking attitudes he and Shepard would have to share to consider being with one another in the first place.

"She is." Nodding, he answered, prejudice be damned. Eyes on the water, he continued to watch Shepard as she held the girl under the arms, drawing her through the water slowly like she was mimicking the action of swimming for the child that probably would never be able to learn such a skill.

"You couldn't have chosen better."

That, however, did draw his attention away from Shepard, chancing a glance towards his fellow Turian.

"The galaxy owes her our thanks. And yours, as well."

"Garrus!" Shepard shouted from the water, breaking up the amicable silence between he and the girl's mother. She leaned in, whispering something to the child.

Soon enough with the secret passed on, the girl's higher pitched voice joined in on the shouting. "Get in the water!"

The temperature dropped in the hours before the sun began to set, though Shepard's cheeks, and especially her shoulders beneath her clothing, still wore the pink burns of far too much time spent under a cloudless sky. It had been unavoidable, however, since a quick stop at the corner store was just about as likely to yield sun block as it was a bathing suit fit for a human. Out on the back balcony, Shepard shared a bench with Garrus, his talons a constant presence as they pushed through her hair, the strands caught in waves from the dried seawater. They'd been there for some time since dinner, quiet and unmoving, her body tucked up against his. It was a position that had been foreign and awkward the first few times, but now she couldn't ever quite imagine fitting so perfectly with one of her own species. She'd miss that firmness, the press of his plates into her skin.

"Are you sure you can manage?" Solana stepped outside through the open doorway, her son cradled up against her short cowl and shoulder.

Garrus lifted his head from where it leaned against Shepard's. "You know, Sol, Shepard here raised a Krogan. One Turian for a few hours shouldn't be too much."

"I didn't _raise_ him—" Shepard started, but stopped soon enough. Though Garrus had supported her decision on curing the genophage, she knew it was still a sore subject for many, Turians especially. How his sister felt on it, she didn't know, but it wasn't wise to push it too far. "We'll manage."

There was a reluctance in Solana's nod, but with a final touch of her forehead against the crown of Necalli's head, she passed the infant into Shepard's arms. He released a cry out of discomfort, no doubt an objection to losing the closeness he'd found against his mother. He turned his head side to side as his eyes blinked open.

"Shh." Shepard tried to draw in on any motherly instinct she had hidden beneath her layers of fictitious armor. It was something every woman had, they said, or at least they lied about it to comfort expectant mothers who felt overwhelmingly unprepared by the prospect of being responsible for another life. Whether it was something simple like a hormonal response to draw one to their own child, or something more, something less explainable and imaginable like a little piece of someone's soul could interwine with that of their child's… Shepard couldn't even begin to understand it. She wanted to, though. More than anything.

Necalli quieted down, though not by much, and Garrus left her side for a minute, returning with a seemingly obvious solution.

"Probably hungry," he offered, sitting back beside her with a spoon and small bowl containing a viscous brown paste of sorts.

Shepard eyed him. "I keep forgetting the man I'm seeing isn't even a mammal. What do you even feed your kids?"

"Hell if I know what was in that can, but it smells horrible, even after eating on the Normandy for years."

She corrected the baby's posture, or at least her hold on him, balancing him steady on her thigh, one hand splayed against his back, the other his chest and neck. Shepard wasn't exactly sure if Turian infants suffered from that complete lack of strength in their neck that newborn humans did, but she opted to err on the side of caution. Showing teamwork that rivaled their abilities on the battlefield, Garrus drew a spoon of the dextro-based muck to Necalli's mouth. He opened it on instinct alone.

A shred of pride for a child that wasn't even hers blossomed in her chest as she watched him eat, mandibles fluttering with each cherished swallow. "I'm assuming when Turians first evolved, they didn't have a store that sold infant slop, so what did they eat?"

Garrus raised a brow plate, and said nothing for a moment, instead taking the time to deliver another spoonful to his nephew's awaiting mouth. "They, uh, well, you know…"

Shepard rubbed her palm soothingly into the cloth covering the infant's back, finally glancing away from him to look to Garrus.

"I want to preface this by saying it was _thousands_ of years ago. But you know, I guess the mother kind of just, uh, chewed food and fed it to the… ah, baby."

There was no holding back the laughter that overwhelmed her, and Necalli raised his head at the disturbance. "Birds," she choked out, "you really are birds."

"We're _not_ birds."

"You may not have the feathers, Garrus, but regurgitating food for your young is definitely bird-like." She nudged his shoulder with hers. "I won't tell Joker."

It was a small mercy, but he flared his mandibles appreciatively as he scraped the sides of the bowl for one last mouthful. Necalli seemed less interested, his stomach growing full, but with some persuasion of a persistent spoon near his mouth, he gave in and accepted. Shepard drew the boy up against her shoulder in response, his tiny fingers digging in against the cloth of her shirt.

"You have no idea how messy a human baby is compared to this guy."

"Everything humans do is messy, so I can imagine."

"Right about now," she said, soothing her hand over Necalli's back and bottom, "a human baby would be spitting up half the milk it just drank all over my shoulder."

The idea both appalled and confused Garrus, and the twisting of his facial plates expressed it. "That's… inefficient. And disgusting."

"You're telling me. If there ever was an argument against any kind of Gods or Goddesses, or almighty creators, it's the human race. Messy, and inefficient."

"Mmm." He set the bowl aside, and resumed where he'd left off earlier, his fingers returning to the stroking of her hair. Every once and awhile, though, he'd let them drift a little lower to the newborn, tracing the ridges of fringe only barely beginning to start growing at all.

"You've got that look, Garrus," Shepard said, her voice hesitant. "Tell me what you're thinking. The truth."

He inclined his head sharply, looking to meet her eyes and finding that she didn't resist. "Do you remember what I said after retiring?"

Of course she did. Laying in that hospital bed in the weeks and months after she'd woken up, somehow still alive and the world a better place thanks to whatever the hell had happened inside the Citadel, Shepard had heard those words in her head. Day in, day out. Garrus, ever the loyal one, had been at her side through it all, but it was only now, three years after the fact, that either of them had found the strength to really bring those panicked words of goodbye back into the open.

Shepard nodded, letting her cheek gently rub against the side of Necalli's tiny head. The infant nudged back.

"Spirits know we've been trying to make a… a hurian? But biology doesn't seem to want to give us a chance."

Her eyes shut as he spoke, crinkles forming at the corners with how tightly she held them closed. Shepard had asked him a question, asked him to bare his feelings, and not a minute in, she felt the lurch to interrupt. "Do you regret being with me?"

"Shepard," was all he got out, his voice tight and strained from what she had the nerve to even suggest.

"You thought we were going to die when you agreed to this, thought it would just be for a night. Now it's almost four years later and I'm still here, we're still together, and getting older." Though Necalli had been on the receiving end of the affectionate brushes of his parents', uncle's, and even her forehead against his, Shepard opted for the more human comfort. She touched her lips to the side of his head. "There are things you're missing out on now. Like having one of these for yourself."

When Garrus had met Shepard, he would have never associated her with children. She'd been harsh and strong, committed to her mission above all else. He'd been different then too, the first one to admit that a family of his own wasn't entirely in his future. It would be the duty to uphold, the _right_ thing to do as a Turian, no matter how committed he was to the C-sec or the military in general. For the good of Palaven, he would have been encouraged to bond to a mate, and at the very least do his part in population replacement. But like the other things in his life, it would have been duty that drew him to it, above all else.

Shepard, though, there was nothing about being with her that fit into how he'd been raised. It was part of the reason he loved her, but nowhere near the most important. Just as he'd changed in the last years, so had she. They'd changed from strangers with common interests to loyal friends, the most unlikely lovers to partners in as much life as they were sure to be in death. And now when he saw her, he didn't see harsh and strong and committed to her mission, any longer. He saw that strength, the type she wore even when she truly had none left, because the people around her needed it. There was dedication and devotion to preserving life and enabling it, in ways even less direct than what she'd done for the Krogan or for the Geth. She was like nothing else.

"We could have it," he said, and to solidify his meaning, he touched his palm to Necalli's back, a finger overlapping with hers. "You and me, Shepard. Finally settle down like we said we would."

Shepard swallowed hard and looked away from him, resting her cheek lightly back against the infant's head. He was taking slow, steady breaths now, his body limp against her in slumber. "I don't mean with me, Garrus. I'm…" She was at a loss for words and growing frustrated. "I'm not Turian. You know I can't, it's as much possible as us ever hoping for something that's both of us. It'll never happen."

"We'll adopt. That's what you said, wasn't it?"

"Garrus…" It felt vaguely like ants crawling under her skin, a restlessness in her legs and arms. While jarring the sleeping baby from her shoulder wasn't an option, she opted for the other, pulling away from her partner to stand, nervously pacing along the few feet of the dimly illuminated porch. "They'll never let us. I know what I thought years ago—that defeating the Reapers could bring the galaxy together—but you and I both know it hasn't worked out that way. The Citadel's gone, the council's floundering. Every race has returned to try to rebuild what they lost, to help their people _first_. If you think anyone in the Turian government, or _any_ government, is going to let an inter-species couple adopt one of their own, you're wrong. Even for you and me, they'd never allow it because of the intergalactic bullshit it would bring about. Christ," her head shook, winded as the rebuttal poured out of her, "we could never even be properly bonded in the eyes of your people because I'm not one of you."

"It doesn't have to be Turian. Shepard, _you_ could have our child."

It was what she knew was coming next, but even so, she remained caught off guard by him actually expressing the idea out loud. Her pacing faltered, and soon enough she'd come to a complete stop, turning away from him and out towards where, on Earth, a backyard most likely would have been. Here, there was just the lights of the next home a few meters away. "No, I can't."

There could have been a light year between them for all the distant he felt. Just as she knew all the ways to make him feel the kind of love and affection he'd never known, she knew how to take it all away. "What do you mean?" He asked, afraid of the answer.

"After everything…" Shepard breathed out a deep, body shuddering sigh. "Dying once, being as good as dead a second time. Bullet wounds and just fucking _everything_, do you really think the option is still there for me to be a mother? Do you really think Cerberus spent the money to make sure my reproductive system was as fully functional as everything else? Me getting pregnant was probably the last thing they wanted. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd gone out of their way _not_ to fix those parts of me." Her head lowered, nuzzling into Necalli's tiny sleeping body. With one hand and arm still holding him to her shoulder, the other was drawn to her face, fingers spread over her eyes. Her body jerking with the first of many sobs.

She'd dealt with thoughts like these for years now, since she'd woken up and discovered the truth of what she'd done for two years while the rest of the galaxy kept on turning. At first, the idea that she'd lost the ability to reproduce hadn't been that hard of a burden to bear. She would die fighting the Collectors, she was sure of that. So what did it matter? But she hadn't died then, and hadn't, by some unfathomable chance, died defeating the Reapers. She was here, in a galaxy of relative peace, left to finally contemplate the magnitude of the things she'd personally endured. And this was the first time she'd ever voiced those thoughts aloud.

Garrus had seen her cry before, but never like this. There'd been the tears of some kind of untold joy when she'd regained consciousness weeks after she was found alive and had heard the news of just how much things had changed and just who of her crew had survived it. There'd been tears of physical pain, so extreme that Garrus would have taken a missile to the jaw a thousand times over to spare her from it. And then there'd been those quiet, aborted tears she'd never let out, at least not around him. When Mordin had died to cure the genophage, when Thane had been murdered at Kai-Leng's hands. He'd even seen the thick coating of them in her eyes when Lieutenant Victus had given his life to save an innumerable amount. These tears, though, they were something else, and he wasn't about to let her face them alone.

He joined her where she stood, and pulled her into him, arms around her and careful not to close in too tight because of his nephew that she still clutched to her. Shepard didn't fight, instead pulled her arm around him and dug her fingers into the carapace at his back, her face buried against his chest, neck, and cowl, her tears staining the fabric of his clothing.

"You don't know, Shepard," he tried, "you don't know. Chakwas, she would have said something if she was certain, wouldn't she? Miranda, too. After everything, she would've told you."

"It doesn't matter," her words were muffled against him, and after a moment she pulled away, wiping furiously at her eyes as she avoided his gaze. "I don't want someone else's child. I don't want to go to a fucking sperm bank and pick some man out of a book, God damn it." While before she'd been mindful over her volume and tone, at least for Necalli's sake, her anger and rage had other ideas now. "I don't want _a_ child, Garrus. I want _yours_. And I can't have it." Shepard shook her head a little too forcefully, even as the tears still came, leaving wet streaks down her cheeks. "Like everything in my life, I can't have it."

Garrus felt guilt, a suffocating kind, for moving her to the kind of emotion she was showing. The pain that weaved through him was unbearable, and he couldn't imagine what she felt on her end. Maybe he'd been a fool for thinking, even for a second, that they could have the unspoken dream. But he had, anyway, had thought about it with increasing frequency over the last couple of years, but never letting his hopes and prayers be said aloud. One day, he told himself, one day they would have it. And now, he wasn't sure they ever would.

"I'd never see it like someone else's, Shepard. You know damn well that kid would be mine, no matter how he or she got here."

"Just _stop_," she said loudly, and Necalli immediately roused, his head lifting as the sharp sound of his somewhat human like cry called out in response to the disturbance. He didn't stop, and Shepard hightailed it back inside the house, shifting the infant to be cradled in the crook of her arm. "Garrus, I owe you my life. If you hadn't found me in that field hospital, they probably would've let me die. You fought for me. I heard about the things you did, the strings you got pulled to get me off world and make sure I was okay. I heard about every favor you called in to find Miranda, to make sure I got the implants and surgeries I needed even when there weren't credits to pay for it. I'd be half blind with a broken back, missing most of a leg, and probably fucking brain dead if you hadn't fought for me."

Garrus followed her in, listening to her speak over the whimpering of the newborn they were to be taking care of for the evening while his parents were otherwise engaged. This probably wasn't how Solana imagined it going.

"The fact that I'm here at all—I owe it to you. But Garrus," her face crinkled at the mention of his name, eyes red and watery, skin flushed, "you don't owe me _yours_. You wasted a year and a half trying to get me back together and I'm not even the same woman I was back then. I've taken enough from you already."

He felt blindsided by what she was saying. They were harsh truths—or at least they were to her, not to him—and it felt physically painful to think that she actually believed her words. How long had she felt this way? That he was there out of some Turian honor or promise, some dedication to his superior, and nothing else? "Do you really think that's why—Spirits, do you not realize how much I _love_ you?"

"I won't—" her voice warbled, what little steadiness she had breaking. "You deserve to be a father. And I'm strong enough now to say that maybe you should move on from whatever this has been." To distract from how little her body language was actually conveying she truly felt those words, she turned her attention to Necalli. She kissed his forehead, stroked a mandible, anything she could imagine his mother doing in her place, anything to quiet him down. Looking at the newborn, Shepard directed her words to Garrus. "You should stay here and find a mate, find _someone_. I'll be okay. I'll be _okay_, Garrus."

His mandibles spread in the expression of pain he didn't know how to share, and even though everything in his instinct said to keep his distance, he couldn't. He laid a hand against her upper arm. "This isn't what I want. I'd choose you over anything, everything else, and you know that."

"And that's why _I_ have to do this for you. The war's over, Garrus." Necalli wailed loudly, and Shepard gave in, forfeiting her hold on him as she forced the baby into Garrus' arms, desperate to get away.

In the end, Garrus was left standing alone again.


	3. Chapter 3

Shepard was used to running. She'd done plenty of it, usually towards the gunfire as others retreated away. Day in and day out, she had stared down pitiful odds and the impossible, daring to tempt fate just one more time. It had caught up with her on occasion, like the day she'd died along with the Normandy SR-1, but with all the running towards the eye of the storm she'd done, it had been inevitable. Running away from something, though, that wasn't Shepard's usual forte. Running to cover or running backwards to pull a fallen comrade out of the flames that licked them a little too close: she'd done countless times. Running away? That was new.

She'd fallen asleep in the room she and Garrus shared, not entirely brave enough to flee the home entirely. That would probably be one step too far into the territory in which Garrus wouldn't be able to forgive her for—and despite what she'd earlier preached to him, about finding someone else, someone _more suited_, Shepard wasn't yet ready to burn every bridge behind her. Still, though, it had hurt when she'd woken up alone, the space of empty bed beside her left untouched. Even if it was what she'd asked and pushed for, the truth of what her words the night before actually meant was a pain she was unequipped to contend with.

For the longest time after sleep no longer called to her, Shepard laid in bed listening to the sounds of Palaven. It reminded her of Earth more so than anywhere else, those months after she'd turned herself in for the crimes she'd been forced to commit without any other path to take. Even now, with all the planets that had been found habitable and thriving with life, Earth was one of the most robust. But listening to the local wildlife interrupt the silence with their chirps and mating calls, she was certain Palaven wasn't far behind. For all the differences she and Garrus had, she always found how remarkable it was that so many things were exactly the same.

Mustering up the energy to start one of the few days in her life that didn't come with a wake up call, Shepard dressed, and with great hesitation ventured back out in to the rest of the home. It was empty. And quiet, save for a cooing that led her towards the main living quarters where Solana sat with her child up against her shoulder and cowl. She eyed Shepard with a careful glance.

"My brother's not here," and though it could have been said with malice, there was a reassurance in her tone. "Went to see our father since he's too busy to come out here himself, but he'll be back soon."

Like the day before on the shore, Shepard felt the part of an intruder. She nodded and kept to the outskirts of the room like a scared and heavily wounded varren when a predator lurked nearby.

"You know, Shepard," Solana said, her attention turning back to her son as he whined for attention. "When the dust settled and everyone's losses had been counted, after Victus stepped in as Councilor and my father was promoted to Primarch, the military asked Garrus to come back. To be a General. It's a great honor to ever be granted a promotion like that, especially when he hadn't been a true part of the military for years. He would've been one of the youngest in our history."

Shepard swallowed hard, nearly feeling the pavement under her feet as her legs begged for her just to start running again. She didn't, though, her eyes caught on the mother and son, the way Solana's mandibles flexed and clicked and through some miracle, the boy at just over a week old imitated what he'd seen and heard from the woman that had given him life.

"I didn't know. When… when did they ask him?"

"Just before you started walking again."

She couldn't watch Solana anymore, feeling like a voyeur at witnessing the intimate exchange between parent and child. It wasn't just that, though, but the guilt that weighed her down heavier than her hardsuit ever had. Another twenty pounds to add to the crushing burden she already felt in regards to him. "He should've taken it."

Solana was enraptured with her son, shifting him down to the cradle of her arm much like Shepard had done the night before when Necalli had begun to cry after she'd raised her voice. His mother traced a gentle talon along the length of his skinny arm, serenity woven into the plates of her face for a moment. The expression was still there when she finally looked to the Commander. "No, he shouldn't have. My brother… I don't think he could have lived with himself if he wasn't there to see you through it all." She glanced back to her son and dropped her forehead down against his. "It was where he needed to be."

Shepard left the new mother to her privacy afterwards, closing herself outside on that same small rectangle of porch she and Garrus had found themselves on the night before. "EDI?" She asked, drawing up the omni-tool on her arm.

"Yes, Commander?" The AI answered through the comm link.

"I need you to patch me in to Liara."

"Of course, Shepard. As she is currently aboard the Shadow Broker's ship, it is a secure and scrambled line."

She waited, and with a moment passed, Liara sounded through the omni-tool.

"Shepard," Liara said in that same warm and dreamy tone she always seemed to use, even full of bullet holes and with a Banshee breathing down her neck. "I'd heard you were on Palaven, I thought you'd be far too busy with Garrus' nephew to make any calls."

For what it was worth, Shepard smiled just barely at the sound of her friend's voice. "You could ignore the data that comes through on the people you know, Liara. I never have anything to talk about when we see each other."

Liara laughed, and even without seeing her, Shepard could imagine the way her cheeks rose and eyes squinted. "I can always pretend otherwise. But that's not why you're calling, is it? I can hear it in your voice. What's wrong?"

"Do you know where I can find Miranda? I figured you'd have the best idea on where to find her this week."

"Mmm," she replied from the back of her throat, a familiar sound she let out whenever she'd begun to work on a new task. "Did Garrus finally talk you into letting her have a look at that knee of yours?"

"You been talking to Garrus?"

"I _do_ have friends other than you. But, no, that's from another source. Ah—here it is. She's visiting Oriana, arrived yesterday. I have no information from today, but I would assume she's staying for awhile. She's been staying in places longer and longer lately. I suppose without Cerberus breathing down her neck any longer she's able to now. I've forwarded the information to your omni-tool and EDI as well."

"Thank you Liara, I'll—"

"What's really going on? I know it's all water under the bridge for you and Miranda, but you and her have never exactly been ones to have a little girl talk. Frankly, I'm a little jealous if that's what this is."

How she missed Liara. It had been months since they'd seen one another, since she'd seen almost any of her old crew in fact. James, he'd gone on to train towards becoming an N7 as soon as the military had reopened its training program. Cortez, he was somewhere in the fleet, serving a job far more befitting someone of his skills than becoming a lowly chauffeur on the Normandy. The others, they'd returned to their homeworlds to help with restoration. Wrex—well, she heard from him once a week—and he was ever the proud father, a few times over by now. She hadn't seen them all together again in one space since the day she'd finally been allowed to leave the hospital, the same day the Alliance had held a ceremony to commend the Normandy, its crew, and _her_ for the bravery they'd shown.

"Sometimes," Shepard confessed, her voice low, "I think maybe it would have been better for Garrus if I had died on the Citadel. He could have started over like everyone else."

There was silence from the omni-tool, and Shepard had to check to make sure the transmission was still coming through. It was, and after a painfully long minute, there was a strained tone of voice on the other end.

"Shepard," Liara admonished, the light and life she'd had before temporarily gone, "you _did_ die that day. Everyone _watched_ the Citadel get torn apart along with the Reapers. The last thing anyone saw of you, you'd reached that beam and gone up. Hackett said he spoke to you while you were there, but that was it. Maybe you weren't really dead, Shepard. To this day no one knows how you got back down to Earth or what even happened while you were up there, but to everyone else, you _were_ dead."

She'd always assumed as much, but had never asked. When she'd woken, weeks had already passed, and there had been far more critical things on everyone's mind than informing her of the temporary grief they'd all suffered from when they'd feared her to be dead.

"And if you had any idea the kind of pain we _all_ went through that day, especially Garrus… if you saw him grieve for you… Goddess, Shepard, you'd regret saying you wished you hadn't survived. If I live to be a thousand years, I'll never forget it."

Shepard's stomach settled in with a painful ache. Sitting down, she leaned forward at the middle. One elbow rested upon her knee while her warm palm pressed across her forehead and eyes, applying pressure to drown out everything else. She sucked in a trembling breath. "I've got to go, Liara. I'll uh… I'll call you later." She disconnected the line immediately. "EDI, put me through to the connection Liara sent you. And use my recognition code so they know who's calling."

"Right away."

The connection went unanswered for far longer this time, but eventually came through.

"Commander Shepard?"

It was a familiar voice, but didn't belong to the one she was looking for. "Oriana, hello. Is your sister there?"

Though the sisters sounded similar enough, there was a lightness to the younger Lawson that wasn't shared by Miranda. Shepard was glad for it as it was the reason Miranda had fought so hard to keep Oriana safe: to give her the chance to be normal that she'd never had. "I'll put her on."

"Shepard?"

"Miranda."

"I know better than to ask how you know where I am. What can I do for you? Cybernetic acting up again?"

Despite the curt tones the old friends shared—and yes, Shepard would dare to call Miranda a friend these days—there was only warmth between them. Albeit, their own version of it where no nonsense was required, but it was warmth nonetheless. "If you've got a few minutes, I was hoping to talk about something with you. About me."

"Of course, just let me—" There was the sound of footsteps, a door shutting, Miranda presumably moving somewhere more private and isolated. "—Much better. Now what was your question?"

"Listen," Shepard coughed out of a nervous habit rather than a tickling at the back of her throat. She straightened where she sat, drawing on the kind of focus and dedication she'd been beaten with during her months in basic training. "I just want you to be straight with me. I don't bullshit you, I never have, and neither have you, so don't start now just because something might be difficult to say."

"…Right."

"When you brought me back, when Cerberus did—" She stopped and took a breath, when she spoke again, she felt more like the Commander than she had in recent months. "I need to know what you know about my reproductive system. Does it work? Were you ordered to sterilize me? Give me the full sit-rep."

Just as Shepard had assumed the role of Commander once again, Miranda became the Operative she'd once been. "First and foremost, Cerberus didn't have you sterilized. We did, however, implant a hormonal chip to prevent pregnancy and regular menstruation. The exact model isn't on the market because someone high up wasn't comfortable with the possible risks, but it's similar to the one the Alliance issues to all female service members. I—" Miranda went quiet for a moment. "It's something I probably should have told you about before, Shepard, but I figured you'd want to continue enjoying the benefits. Things have changed, I suppose…?"

Shepard didn't respond to the question. "It can't be that simple. Nothing ever is. I was _dead_."

"No, of course. You're right. I'm surprised you never asked about this before—"

The balcony door beside Shepard opened up. Garrus was waiting.

"—I'll call you back," she answered quickly, cutting Miranda off. Just as she'd done to Liara, she ended the call.

"Catching up?" Garrus asked, the plate above his eye raised in a curious question.

What Shepard needed was for him to acknowledge the night before, to bring it out into the open. But she was happy just the same, when he didn't.

"We should be getting back to the Normandy," he said, arms crossing in a physical stance of defiance towards her. A sign that he'd made his choice, at least for now.

She nodded and stepped back inside, pausing for a second as she passed him by. "Are you sure?"

His hand raised to touch her, but at the last second he hesitated, unsure of himself. His lengthy limbs dropped back to his side. "Yes. But there's somewhere I want to stop on the way back."

They bid their farewells, as hard as they were, especially when it came time to say goodbye to the newest member of the Vakarian clan. Necalli, he'd be who knew how much bigger by time they got to see him again. The videos and photographs that Solana promised to send… well, they'd have to be enough for the time being. Shepard kissed the boy's brow and breathed in the scent of him, that just like human newborns, was unique and calming. When it came time for Garrus to offer his goodbye, he held him close, recessed eyes shutting tight as he nuzzled his good mandible against his nephew's small one. Shepard couldn't tear herself away from the scene even if there'd been a damn Reaper on her back.

Though she was unfamiliar with Palaven as a whole, Shepard knew the way Garrus took the transport was not the way they'd come the two days before. There'd been landmarks—some destroyed, some damaged, and some in remarkably pristine condition—that she recalled, even some natural flora she didn't recognize on their new course. In another time and place, she would have raised her voice, demanded an answer out of him, but Shepard only maintained the silence, even as the vehicle finally came to a stop.

Wordlessly, Garrus got out of the car, and the only sign that he expected her to join him was the extra moment he lingered around the hood. He started walking and this time, unlike all the other times before, Shepard followed _him_, a few feet behind and on his six. Fields of grass, or Palaven's equivalent, spread out as far as the eye could see, and as they neared the wide open space, Shepard was made aware that it wasn't just greenery beneath their feet. Flush with the earth, rows of stone and metal were arranged in a tight knit grid. At a distance, they'd been hard to notice at all, especially with some of the overgrowth, but as Garrus led her straight through the middle of the field, Shepard did her best to be mindful of not stepping on any of the markings. This was, she realized, a Turian cemetery.

Where he eventually stopped, Shepard came to pause as well, staring down at the carved plaque made of metal bonded to a stone layer beneath. Unlike human graves, this was far more minimal and organic, with every grave marking a variation on each other. Though she couldn't read the script worn into the stone, she knew what it said.

"Tell me about her," Shepard pleaded quietly, and let her hand seek out his, her digits intertwining with his thicker ones. There was the distinct sound of hesitation, not from his vocal cords, but from his mandibles.

"She's probably why I was such a bad Turian." Half of a breath of a laugh was released, but quelled a second later. "I never knew how she and my father got along, I still don't. I regret that she didn't pass here on Palaven, but I thought by sending her away, trying to get her treatment, she'd be able to… come back."

She squeezed his hand, a sign of solidarity. Liara's words from earlier rang true in her head. Shepard did already wish to take her sentiments back—the ones about how maybe she should have been lost that day on the Citadel—but it wasn't because she'd seen Garrus grieve for her. It was because now she was seeing him grieve, as restrained as it was, for the mother he'd lost. The one he'd tried to save, but unlike Shepard, hadn't been able to help pull through.

"It was for the best," he tried to lighten his tone, but the strain was just as evident, "good that she didn't have to live through what happened here with the Reapers. I wouldn't have been able to bury her ashes if she'd died during the attacks."

Letting go of his hand, Shepard moved down to her knees, powering through the tightness and ache she felt at doing so. Closer to the soil, her bare fingers immediately began the process at pulling out the bits of overgrowth, clearing the immediate area around the marker that indicated what remained of the woman was a few feet down. When she looked up, Garrus was watching her, mandibles held flexed just enough to not be relaxed, something she only recently knew was his expression of sorrow.

"Her mind was gone most of the time, especially at the end, but I found the time to visit her while you were awaiting trial. Her moments of clarity… they were brief. I told her about you, though."

Dirt stained hands rested on the thighs of her fatigues. "What'd you tell her about me?"

Though Turians didn't blush, the rest of their facial features were expressive enough to equate the same idea. "She knew who you were from before you died, back when she was doing better and I couldn't shut up about actually getting to work with a Spectre. Couldn't believe you came back from the dead. Made me promise to bring you around if I could."

"Did she know about _us_?" They hadn't been much in that time in between, at least not formally. Shepard, had, however, spent many nights in custody getting acquainted with her hand while she drew on the memories of him. The day she'd finally told him about it, he'd been pretty smug.

Garrus tipped his head in a nod. Even if he had feared Shepard would turn him away in the future, reminding him it had been a one-night ordeal and nothing more, Garrus had chosen to bare what he'd really felt for Shepard. To the dying woman that raised him, he hadn't held back.

Shepard stood, and rejoined him at his side. He forced his fingers and talons between hers, despite the dirt. "Thanks. For this."

"No," her head shook, and Shepard leaned against his arm. "Thank you for bringing me."

Normandy returned to the deep expanse of space with its Commander and Executive Officer on board. There'd been a meal down in the mess, with nearly all the crew in attendance, and for Shepard, it was a joy to get lost in the sound of the voices. Other people's business, as petty as it could be, was enough of a distraction to pull Shepard away from her own troubles, the ones that were especially loud when left to herself.

Despite what had happened at the cemetery, the peace that usually existed between she and Garrus was nowhere to be found. At dinner they'd smiled, hers especially wide as Garrus boasted proudly about his nephew. He'd even passed a few pictures around, the female members of the crew cooing at what was most likely their first sight of a Turian so very young, his features large and softer than the elders of his race. Shepard had even let it go when the one of her and Necalli had found its ways into the hands of Kenneth and Gaby. Both of which, had made sure not a soul on that ship hadn't seen the photo of their usually tough-as-nails Commander looking positively absorbed by the newborn. This time, Shepard would let it slide.

When Shepard retired to her quarters, that familiar stale smell of recycled air and metal overwhelming her, she half expected Garrus to be either waiting for her or perhaps fishing out a few of his belongings from the drawers his things occupied, intending on spending the night on that old cot down. This was a fight, wasn't it? A real, honest to God, argument that wouldn't be cured with time alone. Shepard pulled one of his drawers, checked for the easy pull of emptiness. Untold relief washed through her when she found it just as full as it always had been.

"EDI? Where's Garrus?"

"In the Lounge. Would you like me to get him for you?"

"No," Shepard said. "That'll be all right. Patch me through to Miranda again."

This time, Oriana wasn't on the other end, and judging by how fast her call was answered, Miranda had been waiting.

"I was wondering if you wanted me to forget we had that conversation at all," she said.

"No, just had some other things to attend to, Lawson. Now, walk me through everything."

"I convinced Chakwas to forward me your most recent medical records, by the way, to get a full scope of what we're dealing with here. But let me start at the beginning."

Shepard started the process of undressing for the night, keeping herself busy as she listened.

"What the Lazarus Project did for you back then was nothing short of a miracle—"

"—Still full of yourself, Miranda, but go on."

"But even we had _limits_ about the things we could do. Had you died in any other way, on a planet for example, I doubt that we would have been able to bring you back. At least not unless we'd gotten your body before you'd gone cold. Dying in space, Shepard, that was lucky."

"Yeah," the Commander said with a razor sharp edge, "getting my ship blown up, losing some of my crew, and tearing a fucking hole in my O2 line was real _lucky_. Remind me to never bet on your odds."

Aggravated, Miranda continued. "What I'm saying is that, you were _preserved_. Do you get that? I mean, there was tissue damage. God knows there was tissue damage. Cerberus spent a fortune trying to get your skin to repair itself. But your brain? Preserved, at least as much as we needed. The rest of you? Preserved, to some extent."

Shepard pulled her shirt off and tossed it to the couch, a reminder to pick it up the next morning when she had the patience and energy for laundry. She moved to head towards the bathroom, and at the top step of the landing above the bedroom space, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass of her fish tank. She paused, and ran an open palm over the flat of her stomach. For a second, she wondered what it would look like if there was something else in there. "Get to the point."

"When we'd repaired the most major damage, we brought your body back online—I know, not technically online, but it's the terminology. Had a machine that pumped your heart, another to circulate and filter blood, another for your lungs, I'm sure you get the idea. It was a long process, all of it, slowly repairing you little by little. Where your body failed, we used cybernetics to replace what was missing, fix what was broken. But even Cerberus with all their money to afford the best and hire the best, there are some parts of the human body that can't be so easily fixed with a screw and an artificial organ."

All of this talk, even in layman's terms, brought Shepard back to the endless months of Miranda fighting with the Alliance doctors over her care. Without Cerberus' endless pockets, not every broken piece of her could be replaced with the top of the line synthetic counterpart. It was why, she knew, her leg in particular had never felt exactly right, and without another corrective surgery and a few parts replaced, it would never be what it had been.

"Nerve cells, brain cells, for example, we can't exactly generate those out of chemical compounds in a petri dish and they don't grow back on their own. So we grew them, Shepard. We grew them from parts of you."

Shepard's brows furrowed. "What do you mean you _grew_ them?"

"Once we got your body online, we hormonally induced ovulation as soon as we could, and harvested the eggs your ovary released. Remember how I was saying parts of you had been preserved? Your ovaries were, as well. We'd tried using donated embryonic stem cells, and while they'd worked, we knew that using your own would achieve better results with the finer parts of you, Shepard. So we fertilized your eggs, used the stem cells created—"

"Just wait a minute," Shepard said, her blood running suddenly cold. "And who volunteered for that job? If this is some twisted fucking way of telling me I'm already a mother to some bastard son of the Illusive Man, so help me God, Lawson—"

"Christ, Shepard," the other interrupted loudly. "You always were eager to jump the gun. Let me _finish_. For the record, while I know I may not have been the… best of humanity while serving with Cerberus, and while it may seem otherwise, I _did_ have my own limits. I'd oversee the harvesting of your embryonic stem cells to bring you back, but I wasn't going to let it go further than that. Not after what my father did to make me. And _not_ after Oriana. It may be hard for you to believe, Commander, but I guarded those eggs with my life."

Hand balled into a fist, Shepard leaned her bare back into the cool glass of the fishtank. Just another thing on the long list of atrocities Cerberus had committed against her and everyone else.

Miranda sighed loudly on the line. "Shepard, listen, I'm sorry. All of this, it has a point. There were a few eggs that we didn't use that I kept in cryo, privately and without Cerberus' knowledge. I knew that we might need them in the future and not have the time to harvest them anew, so I kept them. On my terms."

Wasn't that what she wanted to hear? Perhaps not in that exact way, perhaps she didn't want to know that while she'd been nothing but a vegetable with a heartbeat on a metal slab in a Cerberus facility they'd been pumping her full of hormones in a desperate attempt to find a way to save her life—or bring her back to life, was perhaps the better phrase. It was hard to digest, though, and Shepard remained still, trying to come to terms with it.

"And while I'd like to run my own tests, the information I received from Chakwas seems to be up to par. I've no idea, not from here at least, whether the eggs you currently have are viable at all. They could very well be, Shepard, and you won't know until we get the hormonal implant removed. But if they're not, there's a back-up. And even if there's too much damage to let you carry your own child, we could always use the eggs in a surrogate."

"'We'? When did I ever say _you_ were getting involved in this? And when did I _ever_ say this was happening at all?"

"Shepard," Miranda bit out, patience gone. "Be happy you have this chance, whatever the circumstances may be. Some of us don't have any hope at all."

At the time, tucked in the depths of the Shadow Broker's ship, Shepard hadn't felt guilt for how far she'd intruded into the lives of her crew and those around her. It was her right to know what they were saying, who they were talking to, wasn't it? Years later, though, a pang of guilt settled on her shoulders at Miranda's words. That's right, she could recall the message she'd read that was directed towards Miranda's address, the one about her infertility. There was a lingering second of camaraderie between them before Shepard let it pass. Miranda didn't need her pity, just like Shepard didn't need hers.

"Thank you, Miranda."

"You're welcome," she said, that prior element of tension gone. "Was this Vakarian's idea?"

"No, it was both of ours."

Garrus was in their quarters by time Shepard cleared out of the shower. It had been a long one, the kind of extended stay that would have run the hot water heater empty in any normal home. As a marine, showers had always been short, tepid, and crowded, not exactly a place to get much thinking done. Private quarters had effectively reversed that notion, however, and more than any time before in her life, Shepard needed the searing hot water on her skin to pull in on herself in retrospective.

"So," Garrus said, hesitantly pacing, "how do we do this? I've seen a few of your movies, I'm supposed to…" His eyes shifted from her to the sofa. "…Sleep on the couch? Right?" He scratched at the underside of his fringe at the back of his head. "Not really sure how comfortable it'll be…"

Clutching the towel around her, Shepard couldn't help but let the corner of her mouth lift in amusement. For all his confidence in battle, he had never been very suave. "Relax," she said easily, and touched the pads of her fingers to his arm. "We already slept apart last night."

His brow plates fell in remembrance. "Right. About that, Shepard, I should've—"

"I said relax, Garrus."

His hand reached for hers, covering the back of her hand where it rested against his opposite arm. Their eyes met. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you so far."

The sincerity in his words and on his face made her eyes soften. Shepard leaned in close to him, feeling the sharp points of his arm against her skin, even through the covering of his clothing. "I meant what I said. If you want to try… _this_ with someone else, I'll understand, Garrus."

His head shook, a rejection of her idea. "I made my choice a long time ago. And not once have I ever doubted it. Shepard, if you're trying to push me away because you don't want me here, then that's one thing. But don't—don't try to say it's for my benefit."

Tears welled, no matter how strong she tried to keep herself. Somehow, he knew exactly what she needed to hear. Shepard chose to slip her body into his hold, her forehead tucked up into the crook of his neck where his skin was exceptionally soft. This, she'd missed this. "I talked to Miranda… about things."

He wrapped her in the circle of his arms, one hand at her back, fingers slipping just barely between her skin and the damp towel, the other threading through the mop of wet hair. "Yeah?"

"If this is what you want, what you really want, there might be a chance for me to have a child. I'm not sure how good the odds are, but it's not completely a lost cause."

Garrus' arms tightened around her as he rubbed the underside of his jaw against the top of her scalp, an affectionate nuzzle of their skin together. She pulled back eventually, and though he felt the loss of contact, he relaxed just enough for her to be able to stand a little straighter, head tilted up to meet his eyes.

"I'm afraid you'll resent me for this, Garrus."

"Why would I?" He asked, incredulous. "How could I resent you for giving us children?"

"Because," she grit her teeth, muscles in her cheeks clenching as her eyes squeezed shut for a brief moment. "They'll be _someone else's_."

"No." And there was no question to his voice as he cupped her cheek in his hand. "They'll always be mine."

Shepard buried her face back in at his throat, savoring the feeling of home. She wondered, briefly, if this was what their children would feel when they held on to him. Around her, the Normandy hummed, the sounds of the ship's engine core and air vents, and even the bubbler of the fish tank, but all she could hear was the sound of his voice in her ear, reassuring and certain.

"Shepard, they'll be _ours._"

Yes, she knew, he would be a good father.

* * *

_Author: I have since written two follow-up stories for this fic! 'Dad' and 'Mom' are both listed in my profile along with all my other Mass Effect fics._


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